Modified Gaussian models applied to the description and deconvolution of peaks in chiral liquid chromatography

•Modified Gaussian models were applied to fit peaks of enantiomeric compounds•Restrictions were applied to control the baseline out of the peak region•Peak models allowed excellent fitting of isolated symmetric and asymmetric peaks•Deconvolution of peaks with moderate overlapping was also satisfactory•Approaches were applied to eight drugs analysed with several chiral columns The description of the profiles of chromatographic peaks has been studied extensively, with a large number of proposed mathematical functions. Among them, the accuracy achieved with modified Gaussian models that describe the deviation of an ideal Gaussian peak as a change in the peak variance or standard deviation over time, has been highlighted. These models are, in fact, a family of functions of different complexity with great flexibility to adjust chromatographic peaks over a wide range of asymmetries and shapes. However, an uncontrolled behaviour of the signal may occur outside the region being fitted, forcing the use of different strategies to overcome this problem. In this work, the performance of the LMG (Linear Modified Gaussian), PVMG (Parabolic Variance Modified Gaussian), and PLMG (Parabolic-Lorentzian Modified Gaussian) models is compared with variants obtained by combination of the modified Gaussian models with an equation that adds an exponential tail and with other functions that limit the growth of the independent variable. The behaviour of the approaches is checked through the simultaneous fitting of enantiomeric peaks showing a wide range of characteristics, obtained in the separation of drugs with chiral activity by liquid chromatography using enantioselective columns. The study is also carried out with the purpose of performing the deconvolution of the peaks of the enantiomers, when these are not completely resolved, in order to evaluate the enantiomeric fraction.